The wife of a U.S. Marine, Mimi spent countless
nights worried that her husband Joel would fall in the line of duty. He had
fought valiantly and served his country with honor. That’s exactly what they
tell her when they deliver the news—Joel was taken by the enemy in Afghanistan.
Her husband is dead.

In desperate need of closure, Mimi travels to the
one place Joel still has ties—The Marcus Ranch in Texas, inherited by his
handsome younger brother Austin.

New beginnings are only an illusion…

The closer Mimi grows to the Marcus family, the
more she considers it home. But when suspicions of Joel’s past surface, Austin
refuses to disclose family secrets—even to his brother’s widow. It’s only by
accident she uncovers evidence of Joel’s tainted past. Devastated by his lies
and betrayal, she slowly opens up to Austin, and together they unfold layers of
pain and grief.

Mimi is sure she’ll never love again,
but is Austin the man to prove her wrong? Then the unthinkable happens…

Just as Mimi finds new hope in a future with
Austin, Joel returns home from war. Enraged, traumatized, and teetering on the
edge of insanity, Joel confesses to a history of deception, revealing yet
another secret—this one too terrible to forgive.

In an awful twist of fate, Joel proves marriage vows
are made to be honored.

Mimi
had been dreaming of a storm. Heavy rain, violent claps of thunder, and
lightning flashing simultaneously.

She
saw Joel, reaching out for her, his body bloody and wet. She awoke in the
darkened room. It was 2:17 a.m.—the exact time she had woken up for three
nights in a row. She slipped out of bed, her pyjama bottoms loose around her
ever-shrinking waist. The air was freezing. She dashed across the room to wrap
herself in the fleecy dressing gown her mother had just bought her for
Christmas.

6:47
a.m. in Afghanistan.

Her
stomach growled, begging for food. She couldn’t eat. She clicked onto her
Twitter feed to check for more updates since the suicide bombing in Kabul,
which had claimed at least six—two were American Marines.

Mimi
had contacted the Embassy several times, but nobody could tell her anything.
The pain of not knowing was taking away her ability to breathe normally. The
silence was too loud. She had tried to remember their last conversation. Did
she tell him that she loved him? Words so quick to fall off the tongue to end a
phone call. Love you—bye. Often she had felt like she was holding a
grenade—being the wife of a Marine, always waiting for a letter, hearing his
voice, waiting for news that he was alive or dead.

Novelist, movie addict, and animal
lover, Cristina Slough is the author of Till Death Us Do Part,
her debut novel.

Cristina has always been a bookworm, rarely seen without a pen and paper in her
hand, she loves delving into a literacy fictional world of her own.

At the age of 11, her junior school teacher told her mother that she would be
wasting her life if she didn’t become an author. Throughout her teenage years
and beyond, her parents spurred her on to keep writing. She later began a
career in commercial real estate, working in London’s West End, a corporate
bubble where she was unable to fuel her passion to write.

It was on her Californian honeymoon in 2012 that the bug to write was becoming
increasingly difficult to ignore. After visiting Yosemite National Park she was
inspired by the natural beauty of the land that surrounded her. Holding a
special place in her heart, Yosemite would later be written into her debut
novel.

She finally gave up the ‘big smoke’ when her son, Lucas, was born in October
2013.

When Lucas was a newborn, Cristina was told to sleep when the baby sleeps. She
never could. There was a calling inside her to write. After getting to grips
with her new role as a mother, she began working a psychological thriller,
but she couldn’t fully connect to the characters she created. She ditched the
manuscript and started Till Death Us Do Part (Limitless Publishing, 2015).

Cristina is married to Adam, who runs a successful business; together they
share their Bedfordshire home with their son, crazy white German Shepherd and
three spoiled cats. They can be found trekking through woodlands, or
around the many shops Cristina loves to explore. As a family, they love to
travel frequently, the United States being a firm favorite.